Oakland Council Rolls Back Parking Changes Amid Cries From Merchants

During another raucous staging of political parking theater at last night's Oakland City Council meeting, where more than 90 speakers often shouted their opinions on the city's parking policy, the council reversed its position from July, scaling back the 8 pm evening time limit until 6 pm and assenting to a dynamic, citywide parking study. To
make up the approximately $1 million in lost parking revenue, the council will look to new
advertising deals, including nearly $500,000 in billboard revenue from Clear Channel. Only Councilmember Nancy Nadel of Downtown and West Oakland voted against the roll-back.

Oakland City Administrator Dan Lindheim, despite his own admission it would contradict an existing city ordinance, instructed staff to make the changes immediately after the vote, while the council meeting was still in progress, prompting a hearty applause from an audience overwhelmingly opposed to the extended meter hours and increased meter rates.

Angry residents and business owners as well as several chambers of commerce and business associations lined up one after another to decry the initial changes, suggesting that the increased rate and hours were the death knell to commerce in Oakland.

"We have heard enough from our merchants about the impacts of this parking to their businesses," said Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce Board President Sugiarto Loni. "I'm here to urge all the citiy council members, please don't defer any more your motion to roll-back parking meters from 8 to 6. It's going to help the small business a lot."

The champion of cheap parking was again Alan Michaan, owner of the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland's Grand Avenue district, who claimed that his business was down 50 percent because of the parking regulations. Michaan started his testimony with an apology to city council members for his previous outbursts and the anger he leveled at them, though he continued with arch rhetoric and veiled threats of a recall vote if they did not roll back meter rates and time.

"People aren't coming to my business and my business is just one of many businesses that are being so affected all over Oakland," said Michaan. "This is not about my business any more, about whether my business survives or not, it's about whether Oakland survives or not. You've basically shattered my business and thousands of others all over town."

The aggressive ticketing is so "out of propriety," he claimed, it's leaving the city open to a class-action lawsuit. He also called on the council to forgive all parking tickets issued since July 1st and claimed that his critics would be humbled by sales tax revenue numbers when they were released:

I know some of you don't believe in what I'm saying, how major this impact has been on the City of Oakland and on businesses. You'll find out in three months when the 3rd quarter sales tax results are going to be released by Sacramento. And you're going to be shocked, stunned, and dismayed. Our customers are abandoning our city; it's not worth getting a ticket. It's not worth paying the over-the-top price for parking. We're not San Francisco, we're not Paris or New York, we're Oakland. We're already struggling with an image problem already. Let's make our city succeed rather than be a catalyst for its failure --that’s what this is, a catalyst for its failure.

Though Michaan received tremendous applause from the audience, not every member of the public supported him. Max Alstott accused Michaan of bluster and political naivete and offered his support to council members who instituted the parking changes.

"I do not believe that you guys scared everybody out of Oakland's parking spaces, I believe Alan Michaan did by getting on the 6 o'clock news and telling everyone to be terrified of parking in Oakland," he said. "One of you ought to scold him for the level of invective he brought out here. You guys were accused of extortion for raising the fee from $1.50 to $2, but you were accused of extortion by a man who charges $3 for a small coke."

Councilmember Jean Quan, who chairs the Finance and Management Committee, said she and her colleagues went into the budget process in good faith and tried to apply equally painful cuts and revenue increases across the board. She said the public didn't pay attention to the budget until parking, but she felt increased parking hours and rates were preferable to shuttering libraries and firing police officers. She also warned of further budget deficits by January and hinted that raising parking would still be on the table, pending the citywide study.

Councilmember Patricia Kernighan, who was credited by her colleagues as leading the compromise and reaching out to concerned business groups, said that despite their good faith efforts to create a balanced budget across city divisions, they had failed. She apologized for not conducting better outreach and said, "People don't want to feel like we're balancing the city budget on their backs or that we're punishing people."

To sum up the sentiment of the evening, Kernighan read from an August 2nd post from trade magazine Parking Today's blog, which featured a story on Oakland's parking drama.

"Parking is the most emotive subject known to man. Screw with a person's taxes and you have a heated discussion, screw with their parking, and you have a revolution."

Oakland City Council will now have to lay off the very cops who patrol downtown Oakland to keep cars from getting stolen or broken into. Smart move, selfish car owners.

Brian

So now that Oakland businesses have brow beaten the City Council into overturning a perfectly reasonable fare increase, we will be watching to see if business really increases 30-50% in Downtown Oakland. If not, the problem was the recession, not parking fees.

zsolt

What a mess. Fearmongering wins. The audacity of this Michaan guy is amazing.

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“She said the public didn’t pay attention to the budget until parking, but she felt increased parking hours and rates were preferable to shuttering libraries and firing police officers.”

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Sadly, the public has spoken. Here’s a solution that might please them: convert the libraries into parking structures.

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/msonn mikesonn

The thing is, if we didn’t plan ourselves into a corner by making the east bay almost exclusively car-dependent then raising parking rates wouldn’t seem like an end of the world event.

Then again, realistically, making the turn-over on parking a priority, more people would enter business districts over the course of a day hence increasing the possibility for revenue. But you can only say that so many times.

Peter Smith

“…but you were accused of extortion by a man who charges $3 for a small coke.”

burn.

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/jass jass

Will we be seeing a follow up article in 3 months discussing if sales went up 30%?

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/msonn mikesonn

Jass, I believe we will. I think most of us on this site have an opinion on parking, but if leaving parking rates low works I want to see the results. Personally, I’d hate to go around arguing against something that increases business (but I really doubt we’ll see a 30% increase).

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/velobry Bryan Goebel

@Jass: We will definitely do follow-ups.

Tony

Now spaces in Oakland Chinatown will really open up.

a

I’m surprised Kaplan voted for this. Well, at least we still have one councilmember with half a brain.

Luke

I’ll just pretend that it was my letter to Nancy that convinced her to be the only one who stood up for the parking changes. I’m very disappointed about this. Time to start a flood of letters to Mr. Michaan telling him that he can’t expect to get our business anymore, and he has only himself to blame.

The Dynamic Mumeshantz

Well that will be the last time I go out of my way to visit the otherwise beautiful and great to see a movie at Grand Lake theater.

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/sethland Seth Andrzejewski

What kind of business owner trash talks his own city to the extent Michaan did for the measly end of rolling back parking hours/fees?

Kels

I live and work in Oakland and I didn’t mind the $2.00 rate, but I did resent the 8 pm extension. I don’t want to leave a hard day at work then worry about a $55 ticket while trying to run errands or getting dinner at one of the great new restaurants downtown (that ARE bringing in new revenue).

Kels

I wasn’t adding to the parking Revenue since July. I’d walk further to avoid meters altogether or go shop where I could park in a lot for free. I’m pleased they repealed the hours. All of you who wanted the longer hours – just send your checks downtown to keep paying!

Alex

And walking past the Grand Lake Theatre last night, I noticed that the marquee is already complaining that the parking rollback “offers no relief to daytime businesses.” Seriously what is Michaan’s problem?

Maybe an organized boycott is in order? This guy is unhinged.

Alex

And while we’re talking actual parking policy, why not operate meters 7 days a week? The only examples I can think of where parking issues kept me from going to Oakland shops were a Sunday when no spots were free!

jah

I second that the problem was not the rate increase, it was the time extension which would obviously effect something like a movie theater. Why it was an all or nothing deal seems like the City Council’s problem—it was a bad idea with little consideration given to the businesses that pay the sales tax that funds the City Council—that’s the way it is!